Kontrafakt

Kontrafakt is a Slovak hip-hop group formed in the late 1990s, built around rappers Rytmus and Ego alongside producer/DJ Anys. Emerging from Slovakia’s early hip-hop underground, the group became one of the driving forces behind the genre’s breakthrough in both Slovakia and the Czech Republic during the 2000s, helping bring Slovak-language rap to a mainstream audience.

Their sound combines hard-edged, technically dense rap verses with beats rooted in boom-bap and later more contemporary production, tackling themes of street life, ambition and everyday reality in Slovakia. Songs like «Mesiac», «Pocity» and «Čo ja viem» showcase the group’s interplay between Rytmus’s and Ego’s distinct flows, while tracks such as «J Lo» and «JBMNT» reflect their later, more radio-friendly direction.

Throughout their peak years in the 2000s and into the 2010s, Kontrafakt released a run of albums and members’ solo projects that shaped the vocabulary and aesthetics of Slovak and Czech hip-hop, and the group is widely credited as one of the genre’s foundational acts in the region.